Efficient degradation of materials is important to a variety of industries including the asphalt, mining, construction, drilling, and excavation industries. In the asphalt industry, pavement may be degraded using attack picks, and in the mining industry, attack picks may be used to break minerals and rocks. Attack picks may also be used when excavating large amounts of hard materials. In asphalt recycling, a drum supporting an array of attack picks make up a degradation assembly, which may be rotated and moved so that the attack picks engage a paved surface causing it to break up. Examples of degradation assemblies from the prior art are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,824,225 to Stiffler, US Pub. No. 20050173966 to Mouthaan, U.S. Pat. No. 6,692,083 to Latham, U.S. Pat. No. 6,786,557 to Montgomery, Jr., US. Pub. No. 20030230926, U.S. Pat. No. 4,932,723 to Mills, US Pub. No. 20020175555 to Merceir, U.S. Pat. No. 6,854,810 to Montgomery, Jr., U.S. Pat. No. 6,851,758 to Beach, which are all herein incorporated by reference for all they contain.
The attack picks typically have a tungsten carbide tip, which usually lasts less than a day in hard milling operations. Consequently, many efforts have been made to extend the life of these picks. Examples of such efforts are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,944,559 to Sionnet et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,837,071 to Andersson et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,417,475 to Graham et al., U.S. Pat. No. 6.051,079 to Andersson et al., and U.S. Pat. No. 4,725,098 to Beach, U.S. Pat. No. 6,733,087 to Hall et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,923,511 to Krizan et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,174,374 to Hailey, and U.S. Pat. No. 6,868,848 to Boland et al., all of which are herein incorporated by reference for all that they disclose.